Saving the chimps

In the more than two decades since the U.S. government declared chimpanzees in the wild to be an endangered species, not much has improved for those great apes. The threats of habitat loss, poaching and disease have only intensified. Now, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed reclassifying captive chimpanzees as well, moving them from the “threatened” category to “endangered,” a change that brings with it stricter guidelines covering the handling and use of the animals. In the future, any procedure that harms, harasses or kills a research chimp would require a permit.

This change in status is a smart move, one that has been urged for years by respected wildlife advocates and experts, including the noted chimpanzee researcher Jane Goodall. It never really made sense to have a split classification of the same species. Whether a chimp lives in the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro or a research facility in Texas or a rain forest in Gabon, its species is endangered.

The changes would most significantly affect the use of chimpanzees for medical research. Chimps, which have 98 percent of the same DNA as humans, were crucial to the early research on HIV, as well as to advances in the understanding and treatment of cancer and hepatitis. For that, they have paid a high price — being poked and prodded with needles and electrodes, suffering illnesses with which they were infected. In recent years, the number of lab studies involving chimpanzees has dwindled as scientists instead studied genetically altered mice and rats or used new lab techniques.

The prudent new guidelines would not outlaw all chimp research. But they would set a high standard for approval of invasive procedures. To get permits, scientists would have to offer some mitigation that contributes to chimpanzee conservation.